


Fear

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-14
Updated: 2009-02-14
Packaged: 2019-01-19 06:47:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12405180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Between them, words were only ever half of the story. A shudder. Less than half.





	Fear

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

Bezoars and elf-hair and unicorn tears and Murtlap Essence and dragon's blood – twelve uses, and does it really matter when everyone knows that the future will be decided by them and them alone?

_and, friend, you'll promise me_

God, when did he get so _bitter?_

The twelve uses of dragon's blood are driving Harry maddest right now; yet more galling when he recalls knowing them perfectly in First Year. He writes them out again and again, in lines and rows and columns and spirals, in red ink and blue ink and ink that changed colour, backwards and forwards. And yet when he tries to remember them, all that surfaces in his mind is a Hungarian Horntail and then everything is in fast forward: Cedric's face – body, Voldemort's laugh, _Priori Incantantem,_ his father, his _mother_ , Dementors in Little Whinging, the Ministry, Cedric, _Cedric..._

_tonight_

"Are you all right, Harry?"

Luna, sitting across from him, wears a slight smile. Harry is never sure if it is caused by genuine friendship and concern, or slight bewilderment that she had managed to say all the words in the right order.

Harry runs his fingers awkwardly through his hair, feeling those disconcertingly grey eyes resting on him with more weight than he had thought the sprite-like Luna to possess. "I'm alright, Luna. Just tired, I guess."

"Yes. It must be tiring, being you."

_to lie and tell the truth_

Although he is used to Luna's non sequiturs, he still squirms uncomfortably under her gaze. Eventually he makes a noncommittal noise and tries, yet again, to name the twelve uses.

_...Cedric...Kill the spare...the_ spare _...that flash of green...a body, cold, on the floor..._

"It hurts, doesn't it?"

Blinking back tears – tears? What happened to the twelve uses of dragon's blood? – he looks up at her again.

_to lie_

"What, sorry?"

She tucks her hair behind her ears and fiddles with a radish. "Your scar. It's hurting you."

_and tell the truth_

He could deny it, of course, play the hero, remind her bitterly that his scar is not the whole of him and would people please shut the _fuck_ up about it. But—no. "Yes,"  
he murmurs. "Terribly."

Long moments and a shared shy smile settle into companionable silences. Every now and again he looks up to see her staring out of the window, deep in thought, or tracing the fingers of one hand with the other, eyes closed intently. He feels safe, suddenly, in her presence.

He rises to take a book ( _My Poisoned Life_ , by Arsenius Jigger) from the shelf, but as he pulls it down, thirty years of scraps of student notes flutter from its pages and land in his hair or clothes, or flit gently to the floor.

_and pain is like a feather_

Something hot and angry rises up inside him. " _Bollocks,"_ he mutters, and sinks to his knees, grabbing at the papers with unusual ferocity. Suddenly he feels a soft hand on his back and hears a whispered spell and the parchment flies from him and settles in a neat pile on the table. He doesn't turn to look at her and he doesn't get up until he has heard the scrape of her chair and the scratching of her quill.

Flicking through _My Poisoned Life_ with uncertainty, he avoids her eye and he doesn't know why. This is _Luna_. Loony Luna Lovegood. And yet she'd never been loony in his eyes. Off-centre, maybe, but not mad, anything but. She knows too much; she saw too much: he was naked to her eyes and maybe that was why he couldn't meet them, so grey.

_which will flutter in the breeze_

"When my mother died," she whispers. When he dares a glance she is watching the falling snow with a melancholy smile, "my father ran away for three weeks." She pauses. "I was scared."

Something inside him shatters because this is _Luna_ and Luna isn't afraid of anything.

"It's okay to be scared." This time he does meet her eyes.

"Not for you it isn't," she replies seriously. "Them, they won't forgive you if you're scared."

He feels like a long, thin sheet of glass and she has struck him very gently. Crooked cracks are beginning to run through him and if she doesn't stop he'll break. In desperation, he lashes out.

_and I will hit the ground one day_

"What are you on about?" If his brusque tone wounds her she does not show it. She smiles yet again, pleasant and open, and he hates that.

"Them," she repeats.

_and I **will**_ _hit the ground one day_

"You mean people?" he asks bitterly. "The ones who hid your things and read the _Daily Prophet_ and bought _Cedric Diggory_ badges? Fuck them."

"Them," she begins, and his face darkens. "But also all the others. People like my father, and Mr Weasley and Dennis Creevey. They _rely_ on you, Harry, not to be scared." Her soft tone belies the gravity of her words. From anyone else he could shrug it off, not care. Not from Luna. He'll listen to things from her that he'd ignore even from Ron or Hermione.

Slowly, avoiding her eye, he packs his bag and slips it onto his shoulder.

He walks past her with purpose.

_and when I do_

She runs her fingers over the twelve uses of dragon's blood, wondering idly if he will realise he's left them behind.

_and when I do_

She doubts it.

"It's okay to be angry, Harry," she whispers.

_and when I do_

Suddenly, from behind her, an answering whisper. "I know."

A pause; she holds her breath.

"Thank you." And he is gone.

_then I shall stand with you_


End file.
